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Please note that I'm making my blog ashforstudents defunct. You can read articles there through links below. Continue reading lifeskills-mentor blogs.
Thanks,
Ashirwad Acharekar
Mentor, Life-Skills
Friday, December 17, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
“Divide by Zero” Exception
Computer hardware cannot do a “divide by zero” operation. It throws an exception on this limitation. If a non-zero number is divided by zero the result is infinity. And infinity is what a computer cannot handle, is not designed to handle.
Can we humans handle infinity?
The other day I called up somebody for some information. After half an hour I called up the same person and asked something more. She shot back and said, “Can’t you ask all your questions together?” I got really very upset with the way she presented herself and was blasting me. After disconnecting the line I was feeling like giving it back to her. So, before the phone call and after it I was a very different person. I got to hear what I was not expecting. One “me” was on the thought-ride of what I was expecting, which wouldn’t have made me angry and other “me” was on what had happened and had made me angry. These two “me’s” were struggling with each other and with the lady who pressed the unknown button in me. I had divided myself into two viz. of “what should be” (my expectation) and “what is” (reality). This is just a conscious division within me. I don’t know how many such unconscious divisions do I comprise of. Each of this division or a fragment consumes energy in different direction because of the struggle within. If there are such N divisions then I am dividing myself into ½^N fragments. The more I become conscious of these divisions there is a possibility of integration of these fragments into one whole. Then I divide myself into ONE. When I get what I don’t expect I can stay calm because ME/1 = ME. I am just ok.
If I can go beyond just being ‘ok’ with the situation and start accepting the way it is then ‘I’ am becoming smaller (not standing out). Then ME/0.5 = 2xME, ME/0.25 = 4xME. If I ‘fall’ in love with the situation (the way I am and the way the lady who blasted me is) then ‘I’ start tending to zero, tending to nothing. The moment I am in total, in absolute love with the situation I start tending to infinity. ME/0 = Infinite. The same situation which got me into insanity and aggression can get me into an ecstasy. Do I divide myself by shattering my self into infinite small pieces, or by integrating it into ONE or by disintegrating my self to ZERO? Isn’t it taking me from being choiceless to having infinite choices?
Can we humans handle infinity?
The other day I called up somebody for some information. After half an hour I called up the same person and asked something more. She shot back and said, “Can’t you ask all your questions together?” I got really very upset with the way she presented herself and was blasting me. After disconnecting the line I was feeling like giving it back to her. So, before the phone call and after it I was a very different person. I got to hear what I was not expecting. One “me” was on the thought-ride of what I was expecting, which wouldn’t have made me angry and other “me” was on what had happened and had made me angry. These two “me’s” were struggling with each other and with the lady who pressed the unknown button in me. I had divided myself into two viz. of “what should be” (my expectation) and “what is” (reality). This is just a conscious division within me. I don’t know how many such unconscious divisions do I comprise of. Each of this division or a fragment consumes energy in different direction because of the struggle within. If there are such N divisions then I am dividing myself into ½^N fragments. The more I become conscious of these divisions there is a possibility of integration of these fragments into one whole. Then I divide myself into ONE. When I get what I don’t expect I can stay calm because ME/1 = ME. I am just ok.
If I can go beyond just being ‘ok’ with the situation and start accepting the way it is then ‘I’ am becoming smaller (not standing out). Then ME/0.5 = 2xME, ME/0.25 = 4xME. If I ‘fall’ in love with the situation (the way I am and the way the lady who blasted me is) then ‘I’ start tending to zero, tending to nothing. The moment I am in total, in absolute love with the situation I start tending to infinity. ME/0 = Infinite. The same situation which got me into insanity and aggression can get me into an ecstasy. Do I divide myself by shattering my self into infinite small pieces, or by integrating it into ONE or by disintegrating my self to ZERO? Isn’t it taking me from being choiceless to having infinite choices?
Friday, August 27, 2010
Why me ?
Many of us get this question as life unfolds. Why me? The intensity of this question becomes more when something unsettling happens. Is there something that can really settle? What is settlement? Is a good education to earn a good job and good money settlement? How good is good? I, sort of, get on an assembly line of life. After education, its job/business, then family, ageing parents, school going children, routine illnesses like BP, sugar, hypertension. If this is what our settled life is then I have serious questions (and you too have them.) This when unsettles in form of situations like a failure to crack-in into a new job, or distrust in business, your child’s tantrums, adolescent’s (mis)behaviour at home, a marital disturbance, a job loss or an angioplasty is when I ask a question “why me?”
That was only one dimension of “why me?” The other is, do I get this question when “all izzz well”? I.e. when existence showers me with good job, a good spouse, good food…? Have we asked this question “why me?” then? We say, I have struggled to get all this and I deserve it. The earlier “why me?” is disturbing, this one isn’t.
If I can look at “why me?” from both these angles with same intensity, it will bring about an equanimity in the perception. This is as against holding on to former “why me?” where actually its not “why me?” but “why not s/he?” or latter “I deserve it.” If there are more people saying “why me?” for same reason, they immediately bond. They all sympathize, cry and form an organization of “why me’s” and move together to find an answer.
The former “why me?” creates a vacuum and the latter one is an accumulation. We search for words that fill up the vacuum (by logic) like ‘I am good, still..’ or like. Mind manages this by ‘obvious’ blame game of using ‘other’ as the target. A material mind will rationalize this by saying ‘A better tomorrow is waiting for you.’ A philosophical mind will say ‘Existence knows better than you’ and fill up the vacuum. Both are escapes of confronting from the reality of “what is.”
The moment I see that there is no point in escaping and covering up the reality and learn to “be” the same question “why me?” can become the most out-of-mind experience with a drop of tear or two and a smile and you may again ask “why me?”; a different-why-me that mind can’t think of!
That was only one dimension of “why me?” The other is, do I get this question when “all izzz well”? I.e. when existence showers me with good job, a good spouse, good food…? Have we asked this question “why me?” then? We say, I have struggled to get all this and I deserve it. The earlier “why me?” is disturbing, this one isn’t.
If I can look at “why me?” from both these angles with same intensity, it will bring about an equanimity in the perception. This is as against holding on to former “why me?” where actually its not “why me?” but “why not s/he?” or latter “I deserve it.” If there are more people saying “why me?” for same reason, they immediately bond. They all sympathize, cry and form an organization of “why me’s” and move together to find an answer.
The former “why me?” creates a vacuum and the latter one is an accumulation. We search for words that fill up the vacuum (by logic) like ‘I am good, still..’ or like. Mind manages this by ‘obvious’ blame game of using ‘other’ as the target. A material mind will rationalize this by saying ‘A better tomorrow is waiting for you.’ A philosophical mind will say ‘Existence knows better than you’ and fill up the vacuum. Both are escapes of confronting from the reality of “what is.”
The moment I see that there is no point in escaping and covering up the reality and learn to “be” the same question “why me?” can become the most out-of-mind experience with a drop of tear or two and a smile and you may again ask “why me?”; a different-why-me that mind can’t think of!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Satisfaction, the journey..
There are two types of satisfactions. One, where any question that arises in my mind is answered because of prior experience of similar type which could be extrapolated or intrapolated. Those answers are in the box of my education, my experience, my field of thoughts and my books. I feel satisfied and satiated with those answers. This satisfaction is of reaching destination. There is another type of satisfaction where the question that arises in my mind goes on the journey of an unknown. Those questions don’t carry the weight of all that I know. What I know is always with me but is weightless. Mind intervenes and clings to an answer, to what I know. I question that answer and journey of unknown begins again. This satisfaction is of being in the journey. Are we caught up in reaching destination and missing the fun in the journey?
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Self in the Shelf
There was something about books. Their cover page, colours, author, subject, smell, size language, age, something that attracted me. It began with passion but got mixed up with infatuation. I collected books from Flora Fountain in Mumbai from roadside book shops. Slowly, the number of books started increasing. I started collecting them, didn’t read all of them. My ego about the number of books was inflating. I was becoming a subject matter expert (SME as they call it) in subjects that I read and spent time on. If I ask sincerely, what transformation have those books caused in me, I don’t find any concrete answer; its more towards no. Nevertheless, after reading the same book after a gap of 15-20 years the depth of the subject has definitely changed for me.
Books have had a great impact on my life but not so much to have caused a permanent impression on my personality. The like or dislike about authors/books rose like a wave and faded out. It was similar to watching a movie and then forgetting about it.
By seeing books in the bookshelf one definite thing is ‘I feel good!’ The meaning of these books are changing with time. Nothing surely changed in the book, what changed in me to have deepened the meaning? Can the meaning become infinitely deep? All the texts which are trying to describe deeper meaning of life have been interpreted millions of times by millions of people. If same text appears different to us at different time, its not surprising to have million interpretations of a same book in last 1000’s of years. I feel, we try to search our selves in those books. In addition to that external search of our self can we turn one page within? One page which completely describes ourselves as we are, maybe jealous, addicted, without accepting or denying it. “Just being.” It takes courage to look at our selves naked, as we are, without hiding fears and anxieties. If we can turn one such page of our own life in the book of our heart then there is a possibility of reaching the depth with which books in our shelves were written. You will not read then, you will drink the book, slowly. The words will go on a different journey in our being. You may laugh, you may cry with that book in front of you. The depth with which the author wrote and you read will be no different anymore. Can we look into one page out of 100’s that we are turning unconsciously in our daily lives? Then whether we have one huge personal library or not, it really doesn’t matter..
Books have had a great impact on my life but not so much to have caused a permanent impression on my personality. The like or dislike about authors/books rose like a wave and faded out. It was similar to watching a movie and then forgetting about it.
By seeing books in the bookshelf one definite thing is ‘I feel good!’ The meaning of these books are changing with time. Nothing surely changed in the book, what changed in me to have deepened the meaning? Can the meaning become infinitely deep? All the texts which are trying to describe deeper meaning of life have been interpreted millions of times by millions of people. If same text appears different to us at different time, its not surprising to have million interpretations of a same book in last 1000’s of years. I feel, we try to search our selves in those books. In addition to that external search of our self can we turn one page within? One page which completely describes ourselves as we are, maybe jealous, addicted, without accepting or denying it. “Just being.” It takes courage to look at our selves naked, as we are, without hiding fears and anxieties. If we can turn one such page of our own life in the book of our heart then there is a possibility of reaching the depth with which books in our shelves were written. You will not read then, you will drink the book, slowly. The words will go on a different journey in our being. You may laugh, you may cry with that book in front of you. The depth with which the author wrote and you read will be no different anymore. Can we look into one page out of 100’s that we are turning unconsciously in our daily lives? Then whether we have one huge personal library or not, it really doesn’t matter..
Monday, January 11, 2010
Weight Loss
Like Engineering Colleges, Nursing Colleges and B-Schools, every corner of the city got occupied with weight loosing parlours in last couple of years. Aim ? 36-24-36, wow! I’m going to reduce my weight. There are experts who can tell you what exercise to do to burn out which fat and tone up which muscle. It’s a science and an art. There were times when in a group photograph, if the photographer said “say cheese” we use to smile and say cheese. Now, for a snap people not only say cheese but also pull-in their paunch before the photographer clicks. We only said cheese, now we all eat a lot of it. A mirror shows up bulge on all the parts of my body which I have to work on. We are highly obsessed with obesity that we can see. Unfortunately, this external mirror doesn’t show me something important of me. It doesn’t show me the fat that my ‘ego’ has accumulated.
In fact, I very easily become a mirror of others’ ego e.g. I can see a lot of it in my mother, in my father, in my wife, building up in my children. My wife and I have long discussions about people’s ego, of the people we meet. Its so easy, literally happens, that you can make out how much egoistic the other is. The discrimination in my mind is so clear that I can have a scale of 100 and accurately tell how much ego somebody else has. Question is, where is the mirror to see my ego? I fight with auto drivers, with my wife, scold my children. I’m wondering whom I’ve not fought with. All those fights were because of my attachment to some traffic rule, some of my assumptions, my own conditionings. My conditioning is an infinitely big scaffold around me and jealousy, fear and anger is the fat stuck all around that scaffold. Melting that fat too is an art and a science.
Am I aware of my attachments, my scaffold, my beliefs, my fat? They are a very very very very deep part of me. And when the volcano erupts they flare out with tremendous intensity proportional to the depth of my attachment. Am I aware of them when I am not angry, while I am getting angry, while I am boiling with anger and when anger recedes? With all the body-fat can we also be sensitive about, obsessed about the I-fat? There are no parlours available to melt it, there are no treadmills to reduce it, no weighing scales to weigh it. Each of us individually has to look at it for ourselves. If we are seeing somebody else’s fat(ego) then remember that ‘I am seeing it because I have it’ and use that opportunity to jump into yourself, instantly. You may actually float if you lose the flab we spoke about :)
In fact, I very easily become a mirror of others’ ego e.g. I can see a lot of it in my mother, in my father, in my wife, building up in my children. My wife and I have long discussions about people’s ego, of the people we meet. Its so easy, literally happens, that you can make out how much egoistic the other is. The discrimination in my mind is so clear that I can have a scale of 100 and accurately tell how much ego somebody else has. Question is, where is the mirror to see my ego? I fight with auto drivers, with my wife, scold my children. I’m wondering whom I’ve not fought with. All those fights were because of my attachment to some traffic rule, some of my assumptions, my own conditionings. My conditioning is an infinitely big scaffold around me and jealousy, fear and anger is the fat stuck all around that scaffold. Melting that fat too is an art and a science.
Am I aware of my attachments, my scaffold, my beliefs, my fat? They are a very very very very deep part of me. And when the volcano erupts they flare out with tremendous intensity proportional to the depth of my attachment. Am I aware of them when I am not angry, while I am getting angry, while I am boiling with anger and when anger recedes? With all the body-fat can we also be sensitive about, obsessed about the I-fat? There are no parlours available to melt it, there are no treadmills to reduce it, no weighing scales to weigh it. Each of us individually has to look at it for ourselves. If we are seeing somebody else’s fat(ego) then remember that ‘I am seeing it because I have it’ and use that opportunity to jump into yourself, instantly. You may actually float if you lose the flab we spoke about :)
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